Sunday, March 04, 2012

Light snow this morning.. more snow possible Monday

An area of light snow will be pushing across Winnipeg and the Red River valley this morning bringing a general dusting to 1 or 2 cm. This system will move out this morning, leaving partly cloudy skies for this afternoon into tonight. An Alberta clipper system is forecast to develop overnight into Monday and track along the international border, bringing a swath of more significant snow across the Yellowhead highway corridor of Saskatchewan into the Dauphin and Interlake areas where 5-10 cm of snow is possible Monday into Tuesday (see attached RGEM image showing 12 hr snowfall amounts between noon and midnight Monday Mar 5th). Winnipeg may see a few cm out of this system as well, however at this point, indications are the bulk of the snow from this system will occur mainly north of the city.

12 comments:

  1. NWS did an storm summary on that snowfall we had a few days ago. They included some snowfall total from Soutern Manitoba. They stated that Winnipeg had 12 cm. I wonder if NWS is using Rob's snow measurement as their figure.

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  2. I see Monday they are calling for snow 2 cm. Do we need to worry. I think we heard that on friday. LOL

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  3. Daniel P

    Yes I included what was on Robs page for southern Manitoba since many folks along the border would be interested...

    Nice area of light snow today (Sunday)....getting close to 2 inches in Grand Forks now and have reports of 5.5 inches in Valley City ND west of Fargo.

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  4. Daryl..

    I'm taking a mulligan for Friday's storm. :)

    As for Monday's system, looks like models have delayed main snow event until Monday night into Tuesday. We get a leading wave during the day Monday that may give us a cm or two, but then the more organized band evolves Monday night into Tuesday with a swath of heavy snow generally north of the TransCanada. Right now, models are advertising about 2-5 cm for Winnipeg, with 10 cm or more possible to our north through the Riding Mtns and Interlake areas.. but that heavy band will be relatively narrow and hard to pinpoint this far out. Best we can say at this point is that the potential for another significant snowfall is there Monday night into Tuesday mainly along and north of the TransCanada.

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  5. I find it interesting how different weather forecasting entities have such different forecasts even within 24 hours. Ex: EC is forecasting light snow this morning into afternoon and then 60 percent chance of flurries tomorrow. Weather net is actully similar but then Accuweather is calling for 7.2cm for the same time frame.

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  7. Daryl.. You'll get different forecasts depending on what weather model the various agencies use. EC and TWN will use Canadian model data whereas AccuWX and various media outlets will use American model guidance (often prepackaged). Quite often, the two will not be exactly the same, especially in more complicated situations where pcpn timing and amounts can be quite different. I agree that this can be terribly confusing for the average person being subject to such conflicting forecasts.

    As for this upcoming system, models are coming in line that the main axis of snow will be set up well north of Winnipeg through central SK into Swan River area and northern Interlake. Winnipeg may get some wrap around snow Tuesday night behind the cold front, but doesn't look like much at this point. American models have even less snow for us than the Cdn model, so I'm surprised AccuWx is calling for 7 cm.

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  8. I am convinced that the trans canada highway is controlling our weather since everything seems to happen either north or south of it! Who knew a road could do that!

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  9. Rob,

    Does The Weather Network actually use the GEM model data? In a meeting a few years ago they said it was a proprietary 'hybridized' model, but would not elaborate.

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  10. Hey Rob was that you speaking on CJOB last night?

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  11. Daryl.. Yeah, that was me. :)

    Garth.. I was under the impression that TWN used GEM data for the short term forecasts, and GFS data for their long term forecasts. Perhaps that's that they meant by a "hybrid" model.

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  12. Hey Rob was that you speaking on CJOB last night?

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